The Modified Paladin...

[Truth Seeker]

For Ranger Wickett, as requested.

This may have been asked before, but shucks, lets' give a try shall we?

The Paladin, the most misunderstood, touchy, and to some others, considered a front loaded individual.

Lets' dropped that for a moment. The main question today, and maybe for a while.

Have you as a player, modified the paladin from the standard 2D template from the PHB only.

Have you taken the initiative in making the paladin, a viable 3D persona...who is seen much as a person and a holy warrior as well? It is that hard to do, wait, maybe it is, because no one has set a standard to follow (please, no novel references, this is strictly a player's ability of interperation). Has anyone, player or DM, who has witness such a happenstance, give you compliments for it or detracters on the way, it should be played originally on how you channelled this persona.

Have you taken the next step, in bringing the paladin to a viable level of respectability of the profession and most importantly, most importantly (this is very, very important) as a person that outshines the profession.

This will seems a vague question, but to those who have played or currently playing one, you will get the point ( I hope... )

The Bottom line: Have you made the paladin into a real solid person (not a cookie cut out, as mentioned on the grapevine), just a mortal who has the same problems as everyone else, that is trying to make headway in the great world fanasty.

In the end, have you taking it, to the next unknown level.

I await your views (no flame, or bashing okay, you have been asked nicely)

Sorry for the braintwister...but if you can see the puzzle...great wisdom befalls you

Comments...

 

[RangerWickett]

Your question is a bit hard to understand, since you phrased it a bit oddly. But heck, I'll chime in.

Two paladins from my experience.

The first is one I played in a modern game - Jenny Windgrave, a Christian Native American woman fighting the supernatural in Savannah, Georgia, where she attended art school. Seeing as the modern world is rarely as black and white as traditional fantasy, it was very hard to have a convincing 'holy warrior' without being a nut.

Jenny took the goal of promoting the forces of good and order as a societal role. Since she was working in a sort of secret organization that tried to combat magic-users, she wasn't often in a position to volunteer time for society at large. Instead, her goal was to protect her allies against physical danger, and to encourage them to become better people by talking with them whenever they were troubled with spiritual or emotional concerns. It didn't work sadly, because most of the other members of the group were too aggressively anti-establishment to want to take advice from anyone, especially not a Christian theater productions major.

Jenny didn't really believe evil existed. There's just goodness, apathy, and selfishness. She never thought any person (human or fey) would actively want to hurt someone else without having a reason, and she always tried to talk her way out of conflict, finding the reason and resolving the conflict non-violently. But when that didn't work, she was willing to stand in the way of danger.

I say stand in the way because she actually wasn't that good at fighting. When she was 2nd level she nearly got killed by a single zombie. Middle of a graveyard - stab, whiff, slam attack, whiff, move and stab, whiff, slam attack, ouch, move and stab, inconsequential damage, charging slam, knocked over, grapple on the ground. Struggle for three rounds with minimal damage dealt to the zombie, before an ally comes over and cuts off the thing's head in one hit. *grin*



The second paladin was a little stranger, and I won't go into him in detail now, but he was Stanely Deadtree, the only priest of Zorok, the Three-Headed Chicken God of Everything.

 

[SteelDraco]

Just as a friendly tip, you might consider changing your text color to something more standard. I had to highlight it to read it on the standard page design, and even then it was somewhat irritating. I'm guessing you're not going to get as many replies to your topic as you'd expect, solely as a result of your text.

Now, to the question. I play lots of paladins. I like the class, and I consider them right up there with my favorite classes to play. The other one's the cleric, so you can guess that I enjoy doing the whole religious thing.

In recent memory, I've played three different paladins - paladin/sorcerer of the campaign's LN god of magic, a demonslaying Catholic paladin in a historical fantasy game, and a swashbuckling paladin/rogue devoted to the twin goddesses of justice.

For each paladin I play, I pick one of the seven deadly sins, which is their big Achilles heel. That's where they're weakest, and I try to roleplay that. Their personalities all vary, of course, but paladins, just by their nature, are the good guys. They do the right thing, but everyone has a weakness. In a paladin, that's even more important. IMO, a paladin is defined by his failings.

The paladin/sorcerer's flaw was pride - he was proud of his station, his heritage (a rich nobleman, son of the city's highest-ranking wizard), and his powers. But it was also a very fragile sort of pride, since he hadn't fulfilled his parent's expectations and become a wizard. No matter what he did, he always had that feeling that he had failed, and it nagged at him. He was an inquisitor-type, devoted to rooting out forbidden magics and putting a stop to them, so he was also a bit paranoid.

The Catholic demonslayer's flaw was wrath - he had a horrible, horrible temper, which got him in trouble on many occasions. He wouldn't back down from a challenge, and was violent to excess on many occasions. He had to atone for his violence more than once, and almost got kicked out of the party for it after he beat up another party member. But he had a good reason for his rage - his wife and unborn child were butchered by demons after he had 'retired' from service to be with them. He also wasn't the brightest of bulbs - I had quite a bit of fun playing him as someone who always suggested the most direct route, and for some reason the other PCs never, EVER seemed to call me on my dumb plans. I'm still a bit baffled by that. I told them many times, OOC, what I was doing, and they still went along with it. Constant amazement from me.

The paladin/rogue's flaw is lust - he just can't resist a pretty woman. This flaw has gotten him petrified by an ice medusa, poisoned by kitsune, and in bed with the woman who turned out to be the BBEG. By nature, he's a street rat who heard the calling of a paladin kind of late in life, and ended up as a force fighting against the corruption of the city he's from. Think Batman for much of his nature - he does the right thing, but he uses stealth and misdirection to do it. He's a planner, as he's one of the smartest people in the group. The campaign centers around the private investigation team that he runs, along with the other PCs. His flaw even got him on the bad side of another PC, with whom there was some romantic entanglement. We'll see where that goes - the game's been on hiatus for a few months, and we're just starting it again shortly. I'm really looking forward to it.

Well, those are my paladins, and how I try and keep them away from the cookie-cutter image.

 

[RangerWickett]

SteelDraco, that's some good stuff. Nice way to make a character, I must say.

 

[Torm]

I just don't get this at all. I hear people so often saying that the Paladin class makes unrealistic characters, and I don't get it. Maybe it is because you've never met someone who lives this way - a REAL person, but with a rigid code of conduct? It doesn't make those people somehow unreal. If no one like that is available to you to model from, I would recommend two things:

1. Watch "A Few Good Men" again.
2. Read the Robots Series and the Foundation Series - both by Asimov - and the Second Foundation Trilogy by Benford, Bear, and Bova. Pay close attention to the behavior of the robots and their REASONS for it, ESPECIALLY R. Daniel Olivaw.

 

[Truth Seeker]

I just don't get this at all. I hear people so often saying that the Paladin class makes unrealistic characters, and I don't get it. Maybe it is because you've never met someone who lives this way - a REAL person, but with a rigid code of conduct? It doesn't make those people somehow unreal. If no one like that is available to you to model from, I would recommend two things:

1. Watch "A Few Good Men" again.
2. Read the Robots Series and the Foundation Series - both by Asimov - and the Second Foundation Trilogy by Benford, Bear, and Bova. Pay close attention to the behavior of the robots and their REASONS for it, ESPECIALLY R. Daniel Olivaw.

*Looking at Torm*(please, no novel references, this is strictly a player's ability of interperation).

 

[Truth Seeker]

Expanded Life..

Okay, second question, have any of you, portrayed a person who didn't become a paladin, yet...is married and have a family?

Then later, still became a paladin.